This and that - here and there....

The days go by.  I mean to post on what is happening in my life butI find it is either one of two things that deter me.  Either I am much busier than I ever was  (I don't think so...) or I have got much, much slower at things I aim to accomplish.  (and this is probably the true state of affairs).

Thanksgiving passed by.

Did I post any pictures of the ladies busy decorating with fruit and veggies

and fall flowers so on the day of Thanksgiving the church looked like

this......

No, I did not.

Nor did I say a word about the sermon on gratefulness, the denial of anxiety
and the collapse into the joy of living, - which
I found most inspiring!

However, Monday arrived (Thanksgiving Day)
and the first concert of the week that the Berlin Philharmonic
 has devoted to the Beethoven Symphonies..

Wow - a whole week of this marvelous music at 11:00 a.m. every morning!!

I came home early from singing yesterday, to be sure I didn't miss The Pastoral

and tomorrow  it is the magnificent Ninth and the lovely choral Hymn to Joy

concluding the week.

While I have been listening and watching I have also been hemming

towels that I took off the loom last week....

This is before they went into the washing machine.

Disaster - the blue towel shed cotton all over the others.

It took me hours to pick all the blue fluff off, cutting the towels first

so I didn't have that great long yardage to deal with.

Well, then I pressed them, pinned up the hems, and now I am in the process

of hemming.  A rather slow job when I combine it with

concert watching, and I still have four to go.

Then there is the garden, and the task of pulling up the blankets and

bidding it good winter...

I have dug up all the potted lilies and dailias, and the amaryllis

who spent the summer potted and providing greenery amongst the 

varigated zinnias.  I will re-pot them and put them away in the cool

darkness of the garage for six weeks, then bring them out and

on their way to glory in the middle of winter.

Today I seeded all the silver dollars (Luneria)

and have a lovely bouquet to put with the dried Chinese Lanterns.

When I get weary I read a bit.  Finished "I heard the Owl Call My Name"

and always as I come to the end I am in tears....

I am just starting 'Hold Still' by Sally Mann.

It says on the back...

"Hold Still" is a wild ride of a memoir.  Visceral and visionary.  

Fiercely beautiful.  My kind of true adventure.

PATTI  SMITH

And it quotes W.H. Auden on the forward page

"The steady eyes of the crow and the camera's candid eye

See as honestly as they know how, but they lie."

Perceptive of course - so much lies beneath.

I am looking forward to reading it.

But first, after I watch the concert tomorrow - or maybe before if I get up early enough....

I have two lemon slices to make and a couple of dozen cookies.

One lemon slice for a sad funeral, and the other baking

for the Museum and Royal Purple tables at the annual

Taste of the Valley that the village sponsors to provide an

opportunity for farmers and vineyards and community organizations

to advertise a little.

Well, that's my this and that for now, and although I know that

my dearly departed love would say 'enough, enough'

I do sleep well at night.